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Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

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Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#881

Post by bushin »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #817
twalla wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the pagan origins of Christian holidays and symbols have their roots in making conversion more palatable for conquered Roman subjects. Christmas and Easter replace the solstice celebrations, the Christmas tree came from placing evergreen sprigs in the home during winter and the rabbit is a fertility thing.

I’ve always heard it was to make conversion to Christianity more palatable, full stop. At least in Western Europe most of the conquering was done before Rome was Christianized, and they never conquered the Germanic peoples who are the pagans who give us most or all of the familiar Christian trappings (Yule logs, Christmas in December, the word “Easter”, Christmas trees, elves, etc). The pre-Christian Romans made conq…

> Not sure what the Eastern Roman empire was doing with respect to conquering and Christianizing, but if they converted anyone, I don’t think those pagans contributed imagery back to Christian holidays as we know them in America.

Carol of the Bells

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#882

Post by petemyers »

I wish the issue is as simple as what the title suggests. Just read both sides, our political divide can be bridged. Well, what if the two sides don't agree on the facts. It may be a good idea to have centralists on policies, but the notion of centralists hardly applies to facts. It may be possible to have compromises on policies only when both sides at least assume good faith of the other. In today's American politics, I don't see an easy solution to agree on facts or good faith. It is sad.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#883

Post by bobsmooth »

gruez wrote: post #719
multiplegeorges wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see how you've characterized what happened in r/canada. I think it is itself an example of polarization. r/canada used to be great, as you said, but it didn't become polarized in a right vs. left manner. The moderators were self-admitted alt/far-right people who were pushing a particular agenda. When the country as a whole votes left at a consistent 65-70%, then r/canada simply no longer represent…

> Then, sometime in the early 10s and it gradually became very partisan and political. Which, to clarify, means it got substantially worse. I just checked the top posts for last week and it looks pretty... non-partisan? Certainly better than something /r/all. https://old.reddit.com/r/canada/top/?t=week

A handful of jerks that don't have their comments removed immediately means a subreddit is infested with alt-right racists.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#884

Post by soheil »

fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

1. Your view that there are only two sides is too simplistic. To be in the center doesn't mean you're in a 1-dimensional line you could be on a 2D circle or worse n-dimensional space where there are several competing and opposing views on many different orthogonal axes. To be in the center means not to become beholden to one political view and on one side of a very specific axis.

2. Whether or not opposing content can be merged is irrelevant if there are many different ways of thinking about a topic than a simple binary right or wrong. Often reasoning from first principles yields vastly different results if slight changes are made up and along the chain of reasoning. And different people can have vastly diverging points of view even though they did their own thinking. Therefore to be in the center simply means not to drink the Kool-Aid the latest politician is selling.

3. I think you could reasonably argue being in the center is itself a valid political position if you agree that, again, there are more than two sides. If there are many more viewpoints some not even discussed by current politicians why must everyone pick a side that is currently most fashionable? To be in the center doesn't mean you'll be the net sum of each side, it means you have your own opinion and do not necessarily buy into the narrative that is being sold by either political parties.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#885

Post by goldenManatee »

anm89 wrote: post #346
fancyfish wrote: post #287

The elephant in the room is that this sort of enlightened centrism, while it sounds noble, rests on several ill-formed assumptions. The first is that, by reading from both sides, they’ll balance and you’ll arrive at an enlightened center. This assumes the Overton Window is balanced, stationary, and not tilted to one side or the other. You’re beholden to the good judgement of each side to not move themselves further l…

Attacking the center is always the craziest narrative to me. It's saying: not only is it not okay to disagree with me and be on the other side, it's also not okay to not passionately agree with my exact side. The only right way to view these complex issues is to sign your name to join my party and then hold the party line, and everything else is unethical. I can't imagine a more obnoxious political viewpoint than tha…

TIL analysis paralysis goes by centrism

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#886

Post by stevenicr »

dfsegoat wrote: post #138
vsskanth wrote: post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

I cannot recommend the show and podcast 'Breaking Points', by Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball enough. They are top notch journalists who formerly hosted a daily news show called 'Rising' on The Hill, but left recently in order to be more independent and free of advertiser influence (censorship). While they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They cut through much of the partisan, mainstream BS - and get t…

agree. recently discovered them, very impressed. I think their new show has some kinks to work out and a bit more modernization of the graphics to put it back on par with how things they were doing were presented with their spots through "the Hill."

Which I hope stay online to show how they are professional. I also hope their new show gets the graphics and tech to catch up quickly, as they are a refreshing source of truths that need to be told, and I'd like others to be able to watch and feel the same without being distracted and wondering if the new/current as of June 21 make them amateurs with uninformed opinions - instead of the professionals with the history and knowledge that some of us have become aware of.

So glad to see them doing real and truth - we need more.

When I caught part of on TV the other night with Sharyl Attkisson

( eg https://youtu.be/ol-6AwoPLH4?t=947

) I had a similar - jaw drop - OMG someone is telling the truth and they are on the air and not in a mysterious car accident! This is amazing.

EX-CNN aparrently(?) - maybe it's going to be a new movement of like ex-X-cult - no longer beholden to Y -

Perhaps old media is not just losing but started to be lost.

I want a browser extension to highlight individual reporters and info about past biases - as it's too hard to pin a portal as being one way or the other, when there are shills mixed in with regular reporters and editors all mucking up everything it seems.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#887

Post by esyir »

southeastern wrote: post #853
laputan_machine wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give an example of the second type? I see this kind of strawman argument against centrism all the time, yet I rarely see "worst of both worlds" outcomes in a political sense

During the civil rights era, there were people that said "yeah I don't like racism but it's people choice to ban blacks from their businesses. I totally empathize with you it's awful, but over turning freedom would be more awful"

That's not a centrist position. That's a position solidly entrenched in favour of right of association over other rights.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#888

Post by esyir »

onethought wrote: post #613
slumdev wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans support an abortion ban, but they also support exceptions for rape or incest. If the fetus is a human person with rights, there should be no exception. If the fetus is not a human person with rights, then restrictions of any kind are unjust. The provenance of the fetus has no effect on the moral liceity of killing it. It's a lazy opinion formed by appeals to emotion.

As your example you use a weird right wing wedge issue. How about science based climate change where people think you can literally compromise on physics/math and make 2+2=5 because 4 is just too inconvenient. Edit: (I’ll clarify: Abortion is used as a kind of hack into the religious/cultural background of Americans. It is purposefully used to divide political debate in a non rational way).

It's a weird left wing wedge issue too. The point of a wedge is that it cleanly divides. They're thus bipartisan, almost by definition.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#889

Post by esyir »

krapp wrote: post #758
slowhand09 wrote: post #746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On June 12, 2016, Mateen spent just over three hours in PULSE from the time he began slaughtering innocent people at roughly 2:00 a.m. until he was killed by a SWAT team at roughly 5:00 a.m. During that time, he repeatedly spoke to his captives about his motive, did the same with the police with whom he was negotiating, and discussed his cause with local media which he had called from inside the club. Mateen was rema…

Ok. I'm not even claiming you're wrong, but again, if we can't trust anyone to determine what truth is, why should we believe you? How can you prove you're right without invoking exactly the same sources of truth that are being discredited as untrustworthy due to their biases? Once you play the "Who controls the truth?" card, it applies as much to you as anyone else. That argument becomes infinite and recursive when…

The best measure of truth I've found is when someone reports something that goes against their own interests.

I use that as a rough barometer of reliability, amongst others.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#890

Post by esyir »

heavyset_go wrote: post #863
fitzie wrote: post #836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people can hate on tucker all day long, as they attacked rush and oreilly before him, but tucker brings up issues that resonate in red america. he does a pretty fair job, which is evidenced by how trivial the criticism against him is. if people are confused about what red america thinks, they would be well served to look at Breitbart, tucker, and independent conservative outlets to see how they frame the discussion.…

> if people are confused about what red america thinks, they would be well served to look at Breitbart, tucker, and independent conservative outlets I've been scolded for using Breitbart or Tucker Carlson as a barometer for right-wing positions because they're claimed to be extreme, or 'alt-right', and not reflective of how real conservatives think or feel.

They're, from my perspective, further in to the right than the average repub. Huffpo is sorta where I would put them, if you want a left analogue.
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